by Greg Cox
A smoky haze contaminated the atmosphere, which smelled of cold sweat and burnt wiring. The men coughed at their stations. Damage reports started pouring in from all over K-115.
“Wounded, but still alive,” Losenko said, assessing their situation. He offered a silent prayer of thanks to the long-dead engineers and shipwrights who had overseen the Gorshkov’s construction. Ordinarily, he would return to the surface to effect immediate repairs and stem any leaks in the ship’s hull, but not with the Smetlivy still lurking above them. Escape was still the order of the day.
But how deep do we dare descend with our hull scarred and our systems compromised?
And was Frantz done with them yet?
A thunderous detonation answered that question. The periscope platform lurched to port, throwing Losenko hard against the safety railing, bruising his ribs. Blue-hot sparks flared from the control consoles, forcing men to leap backward or risk electrocution. Sundered metal shrieked in protest somewhere above the control room. The periscopes rattled in their housings. Helmsmen, securely buckled into their seats, wrestled with their wheels, fighting and failing to keep the Gorshkov on an even keel. Something crashed loudly in the sonar shack. A voice cried out in pain. Losenko stumbled across the platform.
Ivanov reached out to steady the captain.
“Another torpedo?”
“No,” Losenko guessed. The explosion had not felt like a direct strike. “Depth charge.” As he recalled, the Smetlivy was equipped with rocket launchers capable of firing RGB-60 unguided depth charges. The rockets could be fired in multiple rounds, the better to increase the odds of destroying an enemy submarine. Despite the attacking aircraft, Frantz was sparing no effort to sink the Gorshkov. Apparently, Skynet would rather see the ballistic submarine destroyed than beyond its control.
A second charge, even closer than the first, pummeled the sub. Warning klaxons blared, but Losenko was proud to see that not a single seaman abandoned his post. The Gorshkov was taking a beating, but the shock waves were nothing compared to the damage they would sustain should one of the charges score a direct hit. Losenko doubted K-115 could survive another blow, yet it was only a matter of time before one of them came too close. Their only hope was to get away from the warship before that happened.
“Captain!” Pavlinko hailed him. “A VLF transmission via the buoy. The Americans are requesting our assistance again.”
Losenko’s eyes lit up. Perhaps there was another way.
“Are you certain?”
“No!” Ivanov protested, reading his mind. “Captain, you cannot be considering this!”
A depth charge went off several hundred meters above them. Was it just his imagination or were the salvos decreasing in accuracy? Perhaps the Smetlivy was otherwise occupied?
“Those aircraft are fighting our battle for us, Alexei.”
“Good!” Ivanov blurted. “Let them destroy each other! They deserve nothing less!”
His XO had a point. This might be their best opportunity to escape the conflict, leaving the destroyer and the Yankee pilots to fight it out while they slipped away in the confusion. But to where, Losenko asked himself, and to what end? Just to aimlessly wander the seas once more? Without allies or purpose?
John Connor’s stirring exhortations surfaced from his memory. “We can win this war,” Connor had promised, “but only if we come together against our common enemy.” Losenko had listened to those words many times in the privacy of his stateroom.
“If you can hear this, you are the Resistance.”
Losenko made up his mind.
“Full stop!” he ordered. “Ready tubes two and four! Prepare firing solutions!”
Ivanov could not contain himself.
“Captain, what are you doing?”
“The American planes came to our defense, Alexei. We can do no less.” Losenko turned to the weapons officer. “Give me a snapshot... with all due speed!”
Aiming the torpedoes could be a devilishly tricky business, with multiple objects moving in three dimensions. Ideally, there would be time to check and recheck all the calculations before firing; in the heat of battle, however, the best they could do was take a quick “snapshot” of the situation and hope for the best.
Fortunately, the Smetlivy presented a damned big target.
The crew hustled to carry out his orders, realizing that their own lives were on the line. This was the first time that any of the men aboard had found themselves in an actual, life-or-death battle with an enemy vessel, as opposed to war games and drills. Who would have guessed that, when they finally were called to take up arms in a genuine engagement, it would be against one of their own ships?
The irony was almost too much for Losenko to bear.
“Torpedos armed and ready, sir!” Pavlinko reported. He sat at the weapons control console on the starboard side of the control room. A computerized battle management system, Omnibus-BDRM, processed the relevant data and commanded the torpedoes. In a sense, it was Skynet’s ancestor.
“Do we have a firing solution?” Losenko demanded.
“Yes, sir! A good snapshot.” Pavlinko’s fingers stabbed the weapons console. “Feeding the data to the torpedoes now.”
Dasvidania, Mr. Frantz, Losenko thought. “Fire at will. Both tubes,” he said aloud.
Two loud whooshing sounds, one after another, came from the torpedo room at the bow. Two 533-millimeter torpedoes shot upward at the surface. Losenko prayed that the Smetlivy was too busy with the American aircraft to defend itself from the speeding bullets. For a second, he almost felt sorry for the destroyer. It was under attack from both above and below.
“Evasive maneuvers!” the captain ordered. He did not want the four-ton vessel coming down on top of them. “Helm, right fifteen degrees rudder. Full speed!”
As programmed, the torpedoes went off beneath the warship’s keel. The dual explosions, going off above the submariners’ heads, were far too close for comfort. Michenko kept his eyes glued on the glowing green sonar display. His gleeful smile was Losenko’s first indication that their torpedoes had prevailed.
“She’s breaking up, sir! We broke her back!”
Cheers erupted throughout the control room. Even Ivanov permitted himself a thin smile. There had been a time when the sinking of a Russian destroyer would have been cause for dismay, but not today. Losenko let the men savor their victory as he watched the bisected corpse of the Smetlivy drop out of sight on the sonar screen. He could not resist tweaking Ivanov a little.
“Now then, Alexei. I believe you had something to say.”
The starpom shrugged. The cut upon his brow had already stopped bleeding.
“I stand corrected, Captain.” He glanced around the ravaged control room, which had seen better days. “We need to assess the damage, sir, but I suggest that we put some distance between ourselves and the Americans first.”
“I disagree, Mr. Ivanov.” Losenko’s racing heart began to slow. “We need to surface immediately for repairs.” Multiple damage reports, from all over the ship, were already competing for his attention; he counted on his crew to respond to the most urgent leaks immediately. “Besides, I wish to make the acquaintance of our new allies.” Ignoring Ivanov’s scandalized expression, he addressed Communications. “Radio the Americans. Tell them to expect us.”
Was there truly a Resistance? Losenko could not wait to find out.
A spreading oil slick was all that remained of the Smetlivy. Frantz and his crew of turncoats had gone to a watery grave, along with whatever foul machine had been holding their leash. Losenko did not mourn them. The cowards had made their choice—and suffered the consequences. Better that the destroyer plunge to the bottom of the sea, than that K-115 suffer such a fate. Losenko knew he and his crew were lucky to be alive.
If one of those depth charges had hit before we got our torpedoes off...
Frantz had claimed one victory before his demise, however. The smoking remains of an Apache attack helicopter floated atop
the ocean, a victim of the destroyer’s guns. A second chopper hovered in the sky above the wreckage, keeping watch over the downed aircraft’s pilot, who had apparently bailed out just in time. Floating bodies suggested that not all of the Apache’s crew had been so lucky.
The Gorshkov rolled atop the choppy surface of the Bering Sea, its scarred deck a steel beach rising above the waves. Preliminary reports had found significant damage to the outer hull near the stern, but all major flooding had been contained. Alas, four enlisted men had been killed by an exploding bulkhead in the turbine room, and six more men had been severely burned by a fire in the galley. Thankfully, however, the nuclear reactor remained on-line and there was no trace of radiation leakage. As badly as they had been hurt, the outcome of the battle could have been much worse.
Too bad we cannot return to Murmansk for repairs!
Losenko watched from the hatch atop the sail as his men, grateful for a chance to breath a little fresh air, labored to fish the American pilot from the sea. He was somewhat surprised to see that the pilot appeared to be a woman. Her bright orange life-vest helped her stand out against the deep blue waves as she swam toward the waiting submarine. The Russian sailors wore life jackets as well, just in case they fell overboard during the hazardous operation. Chief Komarov supervised the rescue team as they tossed a rope out. Thankfully, the sea was calm enough to permit such a rescue.
“I’m not sure this is wise, Captain,” Ivanov said in a low voice. Standing beside Losenko on the bridge, the XO kept a close eye on the chopper hovering nearby. An adhesive bandage was stuck to his forehead. “We are very vulnerable here.”
“A calculated risk,” the captain conceded. “But if that ‘copter wished to attack us, it would have done so already.”
He turned his binoculars from the rescue operation to the aircraft in question. Even in the dimming light, he was struck by the piecemeal appearance of the Apache, which appeared to have been cobbled together from parts of several different aircraft. Its weathered paint job was a patchwork quilt of varied camouflage patterns. An olive-green door clashed with the sandy brown hue of the surrounding panels. Crude graffiti, slapped all over its fins and fuselage, hardly reflected the professionalism of the old U.S. military. A skull-and-crossbones emblem, with neon-red eyes, screamed pirate more than soldier. “Skynet SUCKS!” was spray-painted in English upon the landing skids.
The junkyard look of the chopper, along with its vulgar bravado, spoke volumes about the Resistance.
“We cannot cruise forever without allies, Alexei.” Losenko lowered his binoculars. “You saw how the men reacted when they thought we had met up with our comrades-in-arms. For the first time in months, they had hope.” He nodded at the Resistance chopper. “Think of this as a leap of faith.”
Ivanov threw his own words back at him.
“I thought you told the traitor, Frantz, that trust was in short supply these days?”
“The pilots in those aircraft did not lie to us,” Losenko reminded him. “And they came to our defense when we were in peril. If not for the providential arrival of the American aircraft, K-115 might be resting on the ocean floor now, its hull fatally breached. That alone warrants further investigation.”
The XO grunted dubiously.
“If you say so, Captain.” He glared at the Apache, no doubt thinking of the American missiles that had incinerated his family. “But remember what they say about wolves in sheep’s clothing. I, for one, intend to stay on my guard.”
“I expect nothing less, Mr. Ivanov.”
Down on the deck, Chief Kamarov and his men succeeded in hauling the Yankee pilot out of the sea. Losenko descended to meet her, followed closely by Ivanov. The suspicious starpom kept one hand on the grip of his sidearm. A cold spray pelted their faces. White water lapped against the exposed sides of the hull. After months of cruising smoothly beneath the surface, the shifting deck felt uncomfortably wobbly beneath Losenko’s feet. His sea legs were rusty.
“No rash moves,” he warned Ivanov. “This woman is our guest until I say otherwise.”
A heavy wool blanket had been thrown over the shivering pilot’s soaked flight suit. She stood unsteadily upon the rocking deck. Watchful seamen flanked her, holding onto her arms to keep her both upright and under control. Water dripped from buzz-cut brown hair. A black eye and swollen lip testified to a rough landing. Silver dog tags hung on a chain around her neck. Losenko put her age in the mid-twenties. She appeared to be of Latino descent. Her lips were blue.
“P-pryvet!” the Yankee greeted them in atrocious Russian. “You the skipper of this boat?” Her teeth chattered. “H-hope your English is better than my R-Russian.”
“I speak English,” Losenko replied. “Captain Dmitri Losenko, at your service. We are grateful for your assistance against our foe.”
“Hell, thanks for p-plucking me from the drink. I was starting to feel like an ice cube in a cold soda. Talk about a brain freeze!” She pulled away from her guardians and enthusiastically took the captain’s hand in an icy grip. “Corporal Luz Ortega. Pleased to meet you.”
Ivanov’s dark eyes narrowed. “You are U.S. Air Force?”
“Used to be,” Ortega said. She shrugged off the blanket to expose a bright red armband tied around her sleeve. She nodded proudly at it. “Resistance now.”
The Resistance! Losenko experienced a surge of excitement. Perhaps there was still a chance of reclaiming the planet from the machines.
Ortega offered her hand to Ivanov, as well. The XO ignored it, preferring to interrogate the pilot instead.
“How did you come to find us?”
“Weren’t looking for you,” Ortega admitted. She withdrew her hand. “We were hunting that shipload of metal-loving collaborators instead. Picked up your radio transmissions. Couldn’t quite make out all the Russian, but got the gist of it. Sounded like you were in trouble. Figured we’d lend you a hand.” She tugged the blanket back over her shoulders. “You know what they say. ‘The enemy of my enemy,’ etc. Besides, we’d been looking for a chance to engage that battleship. You folks were a good distraction.”
She glanced ruefully at the bodies in the water.
“It cost us, though. But that’s war. The enemy lost more than we did. That’s the important thing, right?”
Ivanov remained skeptical. The deaths of the other Americans meant nothing to him.
“Those communications were encrypted. How could you eavesdrop on them?”
Ortega chortled.
“Hell, Boris, we cracked your encryption moons ago. Some of your old comrades hooked up with us a while back, shared everything they knew. This is a united effort, you know. All us flesh-and-blood types against the metal.”
“A united effort,” Ivanov repeated doubtfully. He sounded sickened by the very idea. “You and our own people?”
Ortega didn’t back down.
“That’s what I’m saying, Boris. You got a problem with that?”
“My name is Ivanov,” the starpom said tersely. A muscle twitched beneath his cheek. “Captain Second-Rank.”
Losenko admired his self-control. Considering the dreadful loss of his family, Alexei had probably wanted to shoot the first American he met, or, at the very least, pound in the cocky pilot’s face. He thought it best to defuse the situation.
“Mr. Ivanov, please go below and oversee the repair efforts.” He stepped between his XO and the woman. “I want a full report on the extent of the damage, and how soon we might expect to be underway.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Ivanov seemed eager to leave the American’s presence. He turned on his heels and marched briskly away.
Ortega watched him go.
“What’s his beef?”
“The war has been hard on us all,” Losenko offered by way of explanation. He noted Ortega shivering and changed the subject. “You are freezing, Corporal. Let us find you some dry clothes and a warm meal.” He glanced up at the helicopter on the horizon. “I will inform your colleagues that you
are safe and welcome aboard this ship. Later, we can make arrangements to return you to your own unit.”
Ortega waved her arms to signal the other chopper, before allowing herself to be escorted to the nearest open hatch.
“Much obliged, Captain.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, as though she feared Skynet might be listening. “Is there someplace we can talk in private? To be honest, there’s a reason my buddies in the other chopper let you guys pick me up instead of them. The Resistance could use a boat like this. I may have a proposition for you... from my commanding officer.”
“John Connor?”
“No!” Ortega laughed at the very idea. “Connor’s just a voice. I’m not even sure if there really is such a person. I’m talking about the real thing. The big brass.”
Losenko tried not to let his disappointment show. Connor’s broadcast had offered the only hope that the world might someday be set right again. Now he gave Ortega a puzzled look.
“And who is your commanding officer?”
“Ashdown,” the pilot answered. “General Hugh Ashdown.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
2018
The back-up base, hidden deep in the remote forests of the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, made the abandoned mining town look like a Vegas resort by comparison. The survivors of the T-600’s attack were scattered across acres of wintry wilderness, occupying whatever shacks, cabins, campgrounds, tents, RVs, caves, tunnels, and hastily constructed shelters could accommodate the evacuees. Spreading the cell out over multiple facilities— instead of one centralized location—was inconvenient and hampered organization, but at least it would keep them off Skynet’s radar.
Or so Molly hoped.
“So what’s the damage?” she asked Geir, bracing for the worst. They had commandeered a broken-down old prospector’s shack along the shore of the frozen creek. Bone-chilling drafts penetrated the bare wooden walls, despite the rags, cardboard, and scraps of foam rubber plugged into the various chinks. A broken window had been boarded up with two-by-fours. Melting snow leaked through the roof, dripping constantly into an array of buckets and pans that needed to be emptied far more often than she liked.
